This is Bowie’s extraordinary solo rendition of Jacques Brel’s My Death. Presumably he had become aware of the song via the debut album by Scott Walker “Scott” released in 1967; for one the translation from the French is almost identical.

Fans rave about the version of My Death from the Hammersmith farewell show. But to me the Santa Monica version is superior almost beyond measure. I would rate the Santa Monica version of My Death as one of Bowie’s finest vocal performances, perhaps only surpassed by ‘74’s Sweet Thing. I’ve loved the Santa Monica performance ever since first hearing it on a bootleg in the eighties, and I’ve listened to it countless times.

But no video of that show is known to exist. Since I started making these Bowie videos, just after he died two years ago, it’s been an ambition to put a video together for the Santa Monica My Death. I had hoped to find another video source of a performance of My Death, rather than have to use the iconic Hammersmith ’73 footage. However, other than a few blurry seconds of silent Super 8 from a ’72 U.S. show, nothing came my way.

A year or so ago, I had the idea to covert the Hammersmith My Death footage to very stark black and white, partly to suit the dark nature of the song and performance, and also to try to somewhat disguise the footage. Not as an attempt to fool fans into believing this is not the Hammersmith show. Rather it’s to try to simply lessen our associations with this footage, that most of us are so familiar with.

So I’ve been trying to get this video finished for over a year, and every few months or so, I have returned to it to dabble some more. Well, the 10th of January is the obvious day to put it out, I decided earlier this week, so it’s been a bit of a rush job over the last few days to get it finished on time. It’s far from perfect, but I’m out of time and out of patience.

Hope you dig it!

I don’t own the rights, and I’m not making any money out of this etc. Just a fan making videos for other fans.